Fortune 500 companies that invest in mentoring programs were more profitable than those without mentoring opportunities, according to MentorcliQ’s 2023 Mentoring Impact Report. SHARE continues to provide mainframers with networking and education opportunities, and companies, such as Broadcom, IBM, and the Open Mainframe Project, are eager to do the same.
In this article, Open Mainframe interns Tiiso Senosha and Hartanto Ario Widjaya and Broadcom Vitality mentee Adia Lemessy share their experiences as mentees. And Open Mainframe mentors Divya Goswami and Hartanto Ario Widjaya, with Broadcom’s Tammy Faucher, explore the mentor experience and offer their tips for mentoring others.
Mentees’ Hands-On Experience Leads to Greater Collaboration
Senosha says that the Open Mainframe internship experience “allowed me to collaborate with senior professionals who have been in the mainframe space for a long time.” He adds, “It was an opportunity to learn from their experience and contribute my fair share to the open-source community.” During the mentorship program, Senosha joined the MOE Core Team and established the Student User Group which allows him to share knowledge with other students. “We have a GitBook that introduces those new to the mainframe to learn this awesome technology. I had to read it, contribute, and use the additional resources provided to increase my knowledge and skills. It was a lot of responsibility and helped me to become a better leader and manage my time well,” says Senosha.
According to Widjaya, his mentorship with the Open Mainframe Project’s COBOL Programming Course “was an incredible experience.” MOEHe adds, “As a mentee, not only did I gain firsthand experience with COBOL on a real z/OS system, but I also contributed to the course's expansion by developing chapters on advanced topics.” Through this program, Widjaya says he has improved his troubleshooting skills. “The mentorship program taught me where and how to look for answers to the questions I had, and it also enabled me to learn more about mainframes in general,” he says. “It has also opened doors to networking with industry professionals, which is a fantastic opportunity for my career growth.”
Lemessy learned about the Broadcom Vitality program when she attended her first SHARE event in Atlanta as a senior in college (Learn about the new SHARE student membership). She says that mentorships can seem overwhelming and that mentees should remember to pace themselves because there is a lot of historical knowledge to learn, as well as the ins-and-outs of the latest technology.
Senosha adds that as a mentee based in South Africa, he learned the hard way that he had to adjust his mindset and timing or risk missing webinars and opportunities to present information to his colleagues. “The other challenge was having to adapt to the speed of my team during meetings. Their pauses are so short, and most of the time to raise your point you must interrupt someone when they are talking,” he says. The exchange of ideas and feedback were essential in making progress on the tasks assigned. “Through this program, I can identify tasks, raise awareness about projects, organize webinars for the student user group, and review change requests sent to our GitBook,” explains Senosha.
He is most looking forward to the growth of the student user group and reaching more students interested in mainframe. Senosha says, “When I started in tech, I learned that the best way to choose a programming language is to look for one with great community support,” and that’s why his interest lies in building strong communities to help those using the latest mainframe technologies.
According to Widjaya, the learning curve in mainframe can be steep. “With the COBOL Programming Course project, in particular, it pushed us to explore new topics and go beyond the basics, such as compiler options and optimizations,” he says. “Luckily, our mentors were there to guide us and connect us with subject matter experts to help us along the way. This approach enabled us to both learn and contribute meaningfully to the project.” One of the big highlights for Widjaya was meeting Captain COBOL, Tom Ross, who helped him understand more about COBOL so that the group could further develop the Open Mainframe Project’s course.
Mentoring Is Learning While Teaching
Goswami, a mentor in the Open Mainframe Project mentorship program for the Software Discovery Tool, teaches students the best practices for coding in open source, but she also reviews new code contributions to the project’s Software Discovery Tool. In 2021 as a mentee, she revived the tool and prepared it as an independent open-source project. “It felt awesome to bring a project back to life and give it a different recognition altogether,” says Goswami. Following her own experience in the program, she became a mentor this year to help others grow.
Like Goswami, Widjaya is also mentoring this year. “I am excited to be a mentor to Ashis Kumar Naik. With his experience from last year's mentorship program, Ashis will be sharing his expertise with his mentees to improve the course with DevOps and CI/CD pipelines for COBOL development,” he explains. “This addition expands our curriculum and equips our course takers with valuable skills for the modern mainframe environment. I can't wait to see what innovative projects Ashis and his mentees create, and I hope his mentees will be able to get valuable knowledge on COBOL and mainframe in general.”
According to Widjaya, one of the biggest challenges as a mentor is addressing the knowledge gap that mentees have when it comes to mainframe technology. “Universities often overlook mainframe technology, leaving their students unaware of its critical role in the global economy. However, once that is bridged, witnessing your mentees complete their goals in the program and becoming mentors themselves, is incredibly rewarding.”
Tammy Faucher, the customer events program lead for the mainframe software division at Broadcom, says that mentees can find themselves in a position of mentoring others, even as they strive to learn and grow their own knowledge. “I had to ask myself, ‘Am I ready to be a mentor? Do I have experiences and things to share with others?’ And I found that I do have things to share,” she says. Mentoring relationships can involve talking through problems or scenarios, and through those conversations, Faucher says you can learn a new approach to your own work.
Mentor-mentee relationships can be very collaborative, and Goswami says that mentees should not be afraid to ask questions or talk to other technology professionals about mainframes. She also advises that mentees attend IBM Z workshops or even become IBM Z Ambassadors if they are still in college. “As an Ambassador, I received training on how to do basic things on a Z system,” she explains. “Another option is to learn COBOL and its implementations.”
Mentors should have patience and consider waiting for mentees to ask for help with a project or clarification on a task, allowing them the space to “play around,” says Goswami. “As a mentee, you have more space for mistakes, have the privilege of being guided, and get to work in a state that's between a self-project and industry. You do unexpected things and discover your potential while weaving something grand during the summer.”
On the other hand, mentors need to balance the needs of the mentee with the business, which means there is less room for errors, according to Goswami. Collaborative mentoring relationships also should ensure that diverse groups of mentees feel welcomed, included, and heard. These relationships are not only about sharing knowledge, but about the critical thinking and discovery necessary to move the mainframe forward into the future.
Serena Agusto-Cox has more than 20 years of editorial experience and six years of experience writing about mainframe and information technology. She interviews and crafts forward-looking and engaging technical updates related to the mainframe ecosystem, highlights the experiences of thought-leaders in the community, and shares important updates to technical education and training.